I like to keep an eye on what the housing market’s doing in the West. That’s not because I’m invested in it — my family and I have been happy renters since we sold our house a year ago. I’m interested in the housing market because this one data set can tell so much about […]
Is the Western growth machine coming out of its coma?
Posted inGoat
Fecal matters
The Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, NY is one of the nation’s most polluted waterways. Toxic sludge lines the bottom of the canal, designated a Superfund site, and used condoms, human feces and tampons bob on the surface. Every time it rains, wastewater treatments plants inundated with storm water flush sewage and run-off into the Gowanus […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Races where the environment matters. Sort of.
Environmentalists can’t contain their glee about Jay Inslee’s candidacy for governor of Washington. “I can count on one hand the members of Congress … that are like Jay Inslee,” gushed League of Conservation Voters president Gene Karpinski at a Washington chapter event last October. The national LCV usually stays out of state politics, but at […]
Posted inGoat
The carbon (spin) cycle
Cross posted from the Last Word on Nothing, a blog about science. We’ve got a lot of dead trees in the Rockies. More than usual. As the region has warmed, bark beetle populations have exploded, and they’ve been killing off massive swaths of pine and spruce. It’s hard to miss the damage, and when British […]
Posted inRange
Like a rogue net
Oregon’s salmon politics have taken a curious turn. In late September several sportfishing groups publicly disavowed Measure 81, a voter initiative they had earlier sponsored to ban gillnets on the Columbia River. The reversal followed an announcement by Oregon governor John Kitzhaber that gillnets were his latest cause du mois and he wants them gone […]
Posted inGoat
Whither wilderness?
On a stretch of land along the eastern side of Colorado’s Arkansas River, enormous, sand-colored rocks pile up on each other, looking as if a giant child had picked up a handful and let them dribble out between her fingers. This rock jumble is overlaid with piñon pine, juniper, and spots of ponderosa. It’s land […]
Posted inWotr
Moose, the popular wild animal
As I shut the door on my way to work last month, something caught my eye: Two moose, a cow and a calf, stood just 20 yards away, looking as though they hoped I hadn’t noticed them –– something hard to avoid doing, given their size. As I scrambled for my camera, they vanished into […]
Posted inGoat
Flight for life
Something about helicopter pilots chasing bank robbers, busting spies and saving castaways impressed six-year-old Doug Sheffer. The Whirlybirds television episodes, over 50 years ago, were heroic and exciting and everything he seemed born to do. While his father tried to waylay those childish ambitions, it wasn’t too many decades before Sheffer had owned his own […]
Posted inGoat
Endangered razorback sucker discovered in Grand Canyon
On Oct. 9, biologists electrofishing in Grand Canyon National Park caught a razorback sucker — the first one seen in the park in 20 years. The endangered fish, known for its distinctive humpback, huge size (up to three feet long!) and long life (40-plus years!) was once common in the Colorado River and its tributaries. As […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Westerners’ presidential proclivities
The Democratic Party has taken a shine to the West of late, seeing the region as its best shot to grow the base. Indeed, changing demographics — rising populations of minorities and educated whites, and a declining white working class — have put a few formerly solid red states into play for Democrats in presidential […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Visitors from around the West
You may have noticed that the last two issues of HCN didn’t contain Dear Friends; we moved it online to get some extra space. You can catch up on our visitors, recent journalism awards and other announcements by visiting http://hcne.ws/PXudbz and http://hcne.ws/OTI73V. VISITORS As the weather cools and the leaves fall, we feel lucky to […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Redistricting pains in California and other states
Once every 10 years, after each U.S. Census, states must redraw political boundaries to reflect demographic changes, a process called redistricting. Districts must have equal populations and should not dilute minorities’ voting powers by splitting their vote. The process can become highly politicized, with parties jockeying to draw favorable districts and keep incumbents in office. […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Is the Latino electorate finally beginning to make its mark?
When Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., announced his retirement in 2011, pundits predicted the GOP would easily hold the seat this November. After all, Arizonans last chose a Democrat for Senate in 1988, when as The Wall Street Journal reminisced, “gasoline cost less than 90 cents a gallon … and stirrup pants were in.” Yet Democrat […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Collectivists for Christ!
Orderville, Utah, is a smattering of modest homes in a narrow valley on the banks of southern Utah’s Virgin River. It feels both overgrown and empty: Thousands of people pass through here daily on their way between Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks, yet few ever stop. On a perfect September day in the thick […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Heated Conversations
Comments posted online in response to our Sept. 17 story “Fire fights“: There is really no question about Richard Hutto’s quote in this article, “the federal government is spending money thinning forests that have a long history of dense stands and severe fires.” But one should differentiate forest management at its interface with homes and […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Hages ride on
Actually, the Wayne Hage “taking” case is far from over (HCN, 9/17/2012, “One Sagebrush Rebellion flickers out — or does it?“). First, there are a number of significant findings by Judge Smith that were not overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Second, the Hages have filed a petition for rehearing […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Economic engineering in the New West
The other night, my local irrigation ditch company held a meeting at the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars). I sat down on folding chairs with about 50 of my neighbors to hear from our elected board about by-law changes and progress on a federally-funded project to put much of our unlined ditch — hand dug […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
As goes Nevada, so goes the nation?
Updated 10/30/12 Twenty-seven days before the general election, northern Nevada state Sen. Greg Brower pleaded a case before a roomful of ardent conservatives that sounded suspiciously moderate. “We can’t survive without any taxes and regulation,” the Washoe County Republican told a women’s club at the Nugget Hotel in Sparks. He acknowledged that he considers power-sharing […]